Impact of Shale Anisotropy on Seismic Wavefield

Han Li, Xiwu Liu, Xu Chang, Ruyue Wu and Jiong Liu
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Han Li: State Energy Center for Shale Oil Research and Development, Sinopec, Beijing 100083, China
Xiwu Liu: State Energy Center for Shale Oil Research and Development, Sinopec, Beijing 100083, China
Xu Chang: Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Ruyue Wu: Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Jiong Liu: State Energy Center for Shale Oil Research and Development, Sinopec, Beijing 100083, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-20

Abstract: During unconventional resources exploration, ignoring shale anisotropy may lead to wrong seismic interpretations, thus affecting the accuracy and credibility of sweet spots prediction and reservoir characterization. In order to investigate the impact of shale anisotropy on the seismic wavefield, we propose a quantitative evaluation method by calculating the waveforms’ amplitude and phase deviations. Based on the 3D elastic wave equation and the staggered-grid finite-difference method, the forward modeling theory with the consideration of shale anisotropy is established. Then, we use the envelope misfit (EM) and phase misfit (PM) parameters to illustrate the differences in waveforms’ amplitude and phase morphology, which are caused by anisotropy. Lastly, by comparing the waveforms of the models with/without anisotropy and calculating their EM and PM values, a practical and quantitative evaluation method is constructed. We used synthetic models of different complexity and oilfield models to validate the proposed method. Through the research, we also gained some new insights about the anisotropy’s effects. For a certain medium model, the impact of shale anisotropy on seismic wavefield is complicated and needs specific analysis. The proposed method provides a useful and quantitative tool for the evaluation of shale anisotropy’s impact.

Keywords: shale reservoir; anisotropy; seismic wavefield; quantitative evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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